Populists like John Edwards and Mike Huckabee like to talk about the “shrinking” or “declining middle class.” They use rhetoric about the “rich getting richer” while “the poor get poorer.” And while most of that rhetoric is sheer baloney, they do have one thing right.  The middle class is shrinking.  It’s just not because the “poor are getting poorer.” It’s because the middle class is getting richer.

Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979—because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. “So,” Rose says, “the entire ‘decline’ of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder.” Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased.

Now ask yourself why politicians would try and convince us that we’re all getting poorer when the reality is that most of us are actually becoming more prosperous.  The obvious answer is that these politicians are interested in exerting more government control over your lives, and what better excuse for that control than the idea that we are all victims and need the government to save us?

At the end of the day, what Americans need to do is spend a little less time listening to the gloomy economic analysis that comes from the media (which is just looking for stories that get readers/viewers) and politicians (who are just trying to get elected and/or expand their power) and start assessing our economy based on their own experiences in it.

Given that most Americans are entirely happy with their lives, such an analysis would undoubtedly conclude that America’s economy is as healthy as it’s ever been.